and the waters prevailed by StormsBreadth  

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many waters cannot quench love

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They reach the settlement around sundown. They were spotted in the late afternoon, a collection of figures slowly congregating on the wall around the edge of the settlement. They waved, trying to communicate friendly intent, and, after a long few seconds, the group on top waved back. As they approach, a few figures peel off to come and meet them. 

The delegation is a mixed group, mostly Sindar, a few Noldor and Edain. A couple look slightly familiar to Celebrimbor, but not enough that he would remember their names. 

‘Hail, friends,’ Taerfinios says, their nominated spokesperson for this encounter. ‘We did not realise any yet lingered in these lands.’ 

‘This was our home for many years,’ says one of the group, a tall elf who speaks Sindarin with the woodland accent of the Iathrim. ‘And it remains our home now. Who are you, to come here now?’

‘Taerfinios, once of Falas, now a follower of High King Ereinion Gil-galad. We come at his behest, to see how the land lies in Beleriand now that the War is over, and discern what might be done to make it habitable and fair again. Have we leave to enter?’

The delegation in front of them fall quiet. Celebrimbor feels the slight pressure at the edge of his awareness that suggests some of them are communicating silently, mind-to-mind. He tries not to fidget. To his knowledge, Gil-galad’s name is well-respected among most of the elves of Beleriand. His Noldor blood comes through the line of Finarfin, the least objectionable of the three Finwëan factions, and his upbringing on the Isle of Balar with Círdan has given him ease when talking with the Sindar. His conduct in the War, too, has earnt him respect beyond what would usually be accorded to one of his tender age. 

But for whatever reason, this group did not follow him to the Lhûn, and have chosen instead to slip away to the abandoned coast. Although they don’t seem hostile, there’s still a tension as they wait for the other group to make their decision. 

Eventually, their spokesperson speaks again. ‘I am Leicheg of the New Havens. Be welcome as guests. Our hospitality is meagre, but we offer it freely.’

The Havens at Sirion are not like Celebrimbor remembers them. 

Then again. Even though he visited them many times in his years living with Círdan and Ereinion on the Isle of Balar, his overwhelming memory is not the summer market that ran under clear blue skies, or the songs they used to sing while gutting fish, or any of the many joyful memories from at time. 

It’s roiling skies and broken doors, people scattered and streets bathed in blood. The sick feeling of being too late, of knowing that the damage was already done. Knowing that the perpetrators were Celebrimbor’s own kin. 

There’s no blood on the streets now, partly because the streets at the edge of town are covered in a thin layer of water. Back when Celebrimbor first knew this place, the Havens had risen from the edges of the various streams that spilled out of the Sirion, up to the cliffs above. Now, the lowest-lying houses are partially submerged, partially crumbled away, their remains boarded over and serving as jetties. The waiting elves tie up their boats and lead them through the streets. 

They've done a good job of adapting to the new situation. Clear water and sand flow between the buildings, but the people who live here have hauled rocks into the road to act as stepping stones, and sent boards between balconies and windows to enable crossing higher up. Small boats bob cheerfully around the outskirts and at the doors. As the settlement rises to the cliffs, Celebrimbor sees more green peeking out between buildings, where the inhabitants have planted gardens.

Their group don't seem to merit the privilege of fully dry accommodation yet. Their guide, a young Sinda who introduces herself as Alwedhen, takes them to a building towards the edge of the settlement, where the water laps low enough that it mostly doesn't get over the tops of their boots.

It looks abandoned, but mostly still intact. The walls are sturdy and the rush thatching on the roof is in good repair. Alwedhen pulls out a ladder and sets it against a window, then shimmies up to unlatch the frames and lash the ladder securely in place. They tie their boats to a post at the bottom and climb up to join her. 

'No-one's claimed this building yet,' she says, as she helps them bring their supplies in, and then gives them a hand hauling themselves. 'So it's a bit dusty, but we've checked and the insides are solid enough, at least up here, and we rethatched the roof a few months ago. Dwell here as welcome guests, and share our table this evening.’ She pauses for a moment after the formal words of welcome, then adds: ‘We normally meet up at the top of the hill. When it isn’t raining, at least.’

They thank her, and she leaves. Celebrimbor suspects that the invitation to dinner is as much about their hosts wanting to take their measure as fulfil their obligations towards guests, but that feeling is entirely mutual.

The house they’ve been given is as solid as Alwedhen said. There's a layer of dust and a briny smell, but the room itself seems solid, unaffected by rot  - at least on the first floor. Looking down the hole where the stairs must once have been reveals that the ground floor is covered in a thin layer of water, seaweed clinging to the walls up to about knee height. There's a dark mark against the wall where the staircase must have been rotting, before someone cut it away. 

The upstairs is abandoned, but not derelict or ransacked. There’s still furniture in place, though the mattresses that once topped the bedframes have long since mouldered away. Any personal touches are gone as well, suggesting that the last resident of this building was not a hapless refugee, slaughtered by the Sons of Fëanor, but a Valinorian solider or several, landed at the Mouths of Sirion to begin their campaign. 

Celebrimbor and his friends spend a while clearing the rubbish from the rooms, and dusting them with a broom Eluduinen improvises from a bundle of plants from the salt marshes nearby. 

By the time they’re satisfied - bedrolls laid out in a row, tents neatly stacked in a corner - the sun is starting to wester, and it’s time for them to make their way up to the cliffs. 

By now, the tide has gone out again, and their feet stay dry as they start the ascent. There's a fire lit up ahead, near the top of the cliff, that guides their ascent, set in the shadow of some ruins... 

It's only as they turn the corner, passing the walls that surround the courtyard, that Celebrimbor's mental map snaps into place. The landscape has changed so much, the cliffs eroded and buildings shifted, that it's not until he sees the full courtyard that he realises they stand by Elwing's tower. Or what's left of it, at least: the tower itself was close enough to the edge of the cliff that it has long since fallen into the sea. But Celebrimbor knows this garden well, and has to put his hand on the wall to brace against the surge of memories. 

Not the Third Kinslaying, fortunately. Celebrimbor hadn't made it this far up, in the search for survivors. Didn't see the desolation that his remaining uncles had wrought in their desperate quest to snatch a necklace from the hands of a young mother. From Elwing. 

But this means that Celebrimbor's memories of this place are untainted by blood and ruin. With the last light of sunset painting the sky, and scent of night-blooming flowers filling the air, all he can think of is the night of Elwing and Eärendil's wedding. 

Idril made Celebrimbor join the wedding party as a member of Eärendil’s kin. Celebrimbor had resisted at first, their relationship being very distant – second cousins once removed – and complicated by time and war. He’d thought it was only Idril’s lingering childhood affection for him, until Eärendil had placed a hand on his arm and looked at him with Tuor’s sea-blue eyes and said ‘Uncle. I want you there.’

To Eärendil, Celebrimbor supposed, it mattered less that Celebrimbor was the son of a man who slaughtered his wife’s family, and more that he was the cousin Idril had wept tears of joy to see when she arrived at the mouths of Sirion. Mattered more that Celebrimbor had picked him up – small, yet sturdy in the way human children often were – and shown him the biggest boats he’d ever seen.

He accepted on the condition that Elwing didn’t object, but Elwing had been bright and bold and quick to laugh and forgive, and she not only didn't object, but insisted. 

So Celebrimbor stood with Tuor and Idril and the remaining lords of Gondolin, waiting at the gates to Elwing's courtyard, listening as Tuor asked the ritual questions seeking admittance and favour of the bride. 

‘Elwing grants your request. Enter, friends.’

The gates were flung open, revealing the young bride bedecked in seabird feathers and spring blooms and there, at her throat, glowing with the holy light that Celebrimbor had not seen in hundreds of years, the Silmaril her parents had died for. Celebrimbor’s parents had died for. Celebrimbor had to grip Idril's hand very tightly, and she gave him a worried look. 

But it hadn't been the Oath, passed down somehow without Celebrimbor's consent. Nor had it been the jewel madness that seemed to overtake some when they saw the light of the trees again. It was only – some emotion, reaching up to grip him, such that he could shake his head gently and assure Idril that he was fine, and not about to cause a kinslaying at a wedding. 

The wedding itself was beautiful. For a royal wedding, between a prince of Gondolin and a princess of Doriath, it wasn’t an ostentatious affair. Celebrimbor was just about old enough to remember Turgon and Elenwë’s wedding, which had all the pomp and ceremony you would expect of Turgon. TBy contrast, his grandson’s wedding was vows under a bower of sea lavender, freshly caught fish grilled over an open fire, and dancing under the stars. Most of all, it was the love of two young peredhil, shining through the entire ceremony. 

Towards the end of the night, as the east was just starting to glimmer the brighter blue of morning, Celebrimbor found Idril sat on a bench, her face set not towards the dance floor where her son was still swaying in the arms of his new wife, but to the sea. She sat barefoot, shoes and silver foot braces both discarded. 

‘Are they giving you trouble?’ Celebrimbor asked, nodding towards the braces. He’d spent a lot of time improving on them, since Idril’s arrival. 

Idril looked up, startled out of whatever thought she was having. ‘What? Oh, no. No they’re brilliant, really. But I can only dance for so long before my feet get tired, and I wanted to feel the grass.’ She pressed her feet down into the grass as she spoke, stretching out the twists in the muscle that they tended to fall into unsupported.

‘Is it time?’ Celebrimbor asked quietly. Idril sighed.

‘I fear it comes closer. Now Eärendil is grown, and wed. My Tuor grows restless with longing for the sea. And he… he aches. His bones grow old in ways I do not understand, but it makes things harder for him. He fears that if he waits much longer, he will not rightly be able to make the journey. And he must make the journey.’ 

‘I understand,’ Celebrimbor said, and he did. Perhaps not the call of the sea, whose waves had ever discomfited him after that single journey from Valinor to here. But he was intimately familiar with the call of a project, the fascination with an idea that could quickly lead to obsession. The need to follow an idea wherever it took you, because the only choices were turning away and wholehearted commitment, and turning away would destroy you. 

Idril turned to him, sudden, breaking his train of thought. She grabbed his hands and stared at him with wide eyes, the same Finwëan grey as his own. 

‘Look after them, Tyelpe,’ she said. 'There’s a darkness looming… something on the horizon.’ Her voice broke slightly and for a second she wasn’t the wise leader she’d grown into, but just a scared mother. ‘Look after my baby.’ 

Celebrimbor blinked, shocked by her sudden intensity. He held onto her hands, nodding. 

‘Of course, Rillë, of course. I’ll do whatever I can.’ 

It hadn’t been enough. 

Now, the courtyard is cracked and changed, but still recognisable. The promontory where Celebrimbor once sat with Idril has long since fallen into the sea, but the night-blooming flowers still cling to the walls, and people still gather around the fire in the middle. Like when Celebrimbor had been here last, it’s a mixture - mostly elves, some humans. 

The meal is baked fish and sea vegetables, not much different to what they’ve been eating on the road, but eating in a settled place, with more folks for company than their own selves, makes it a more joyful occasion than their recent repasts. 

Celebrimbor sits a little apart from the rest once he has been given his plate. Close to where he had sat with Idril, staring out at the sea. Eärendil’s star has risen overhead. 

‘Celebrimbor?’ 

The voice isn’t one he recognises. He looks over and sees an elven woman. She has dark hair, but her features are hard to place, not clearly Noldor nor Sindar. There’s something slightly familiar about her, but he can’t place it, and he frowns slightly. ‘You – you are Celebrimbor, aren’t you?’ 

‘I am.’

‘You won’t remember me but – I grew up here. And after… they came… you were the one who found us.’

The picture snaps, suddenly, the face of the woman in front of him matching the face of a scared girl, hiding in the dunes. He draws a shaky breath. The skies above him are wide open, the setting sun paints the world in brilliant golds and pinks, and the woman in front of him is alive, alive, alive. 

‘I remember,’ Celebrimbor says, voice thick with feeling. ‘Though I don’t – you’ll have to tell me your name again.’

‘Serniel. I’m Serniel.’ 

Celebrimbor pats the space next to him. ‘Sit with me?’ he asks, and she does.

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Chapter End Notes

Title from Song of Solomon 8:7